Ölbeat 253: Beer Hunter's Mufloni Umbalabisse

Brewery: Beer Hunter's (in Finnish)
Country: Finland
Style: Premium Lager
Abv: 4,5 %
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What about the beer?

Colour is hazy straw yellow with a large white head. Aroma has lemon and grainy malts. Taste starts with biting sour-bitter citrus. Biting bitter grapefruit takes over with dry grainy malts. Near the finish the dry-bitter flavour gets piny notes. Aftertaste has piny-malty dryness and grapefruit bitterness.

Mild but excellent hopped Lager. Citrus, malts and piny flavours are nicely present. Believe or not, this was brewed an American football team Pori Bears for their 35th anniversary. Much better than most of the band-label beers available. And much better than the official Super Bowl beer.

Ölbeat

In American football, they aren't so much after the goals but touchdowns, right? Don't know or give a shit about the game, but it's nice to see that sport clubs want to have their own brews for celebration and have them brewed in small local breweries. That's punk and so is this.

Blink-182: Touchdown Boy (YouTube)

From the 1995 album Cheshire Cat, the song was written by Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus.

Ölbeat 246: Maku Amorphis Lager

Brewery: Maku Brewing
Country: Finland 
Style: Premium Lager
Abv: 4,6 % 
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is straw yellow with a small white head. Aroma has grainy malts, lemon and hay. Taste begins with malty bitter bite. Grainy malts with some citrus tartness take over. Towards the end malts get fruity sweet tones. Aftertaste has malty dryness and fruity bitterness.

Nice pale lager. Expected nothing, got some good malty and bitter taste. Goes down easy and quick. Not every brew has to be a journey to wonderland - just a little lift is sometimes great.

Ölbeat

Since the beer was brewed as Finnish rock band Amorphis' signature brew, the artist is easy to pick. For the song I followed the path of commercial simplicity and took the title track of their newest album.

Amorphis: Under the Red Cloud (YouTube)

From the 2015 album Under the Red Cloud, the song was written by Santeri Kallio and Pekka Kainulainen.

Skitbit Jan 2017: Ruosniemen Koodari

Brewery: Ruosniemen Panimo
Country: Finland
Style: Premium Lager
Abv: 5,7 %
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What about the beer?

Colour is hazy golden orange with a large white head. Aroma has grapefruit, lemon, malts and some herbs. Taste begins with strongly harsh herbal bitterness. Piny but unclean bitter citrus flavours take over with an earthy sidetone. Towards the end the soily flavours get stronger. Aftertaste has harsh bitterness and some bad vegetable flavours.

Damn. This shouldn't have happened: the first brew from a local favourite brewery that goes awfully wrong. A bad bottle, perhaps? Somehow I'm glad that the miss came with a style I don't so much care about.

Ölbeat

The commercial description of Koodari (Coder) begins with the words: "Coder closes out the distractions with big headphones." Utter crap. I can imagine the original lyrics of this song going: "I'm serious as a necromancer when I say / Coder is a f***ing cancer." But that wouldn't have been a 90's eurodance hit but rather a protest song by Slipknot.  

Snap!: Rhythm Is a Dancer (YouTube)

From the 1992 album The Madman's Return, the song was written by Benito Benites, John Garrett III and Thea Austin.

Ölbeat 009: Stadin Panimo American Lager

Brewery: Stadin Panimo
Country: Finland
Style: Premium Lager
Abv: 4,5 %
@RateBeer

Born American in Finland

Stadin Panimo (StaPa), founded in 1998 for sahti brewing and started in 2000 with beer, is a Finnish microbrewery in Helsinki. The brewery was shut down in 2007 but restarted only one year later - for the joy of Finnish beer lovers. As the top of the success story the brewery opened its own bar in 2015. StaPa has been awarded for many of its brews, both sahti and beer. American Lager has been selected Finland's best "grocery store" (max 4,7 % abv) light lager in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and Finland's best beer in 2014, so it was a natural choice for the first StaPa beer with an Ölbeat.

What about the beer?
Colour is cloudy light yellow with bubbles and a two-finger-thick lasting white head. Aroma is fresh, filled with grapefruit and behind it there's more grapefruit. The first impression of taste is biting dry hops. Then you get distinctive lemon and grapefruit. High level carbonation is present the whole experience. Bitter aftertaste lasts long.

Let's cut it short. One of the first craftbeeroholic rules is: "Don't drink lager. Never. Only in and after sauna, if you can't obey the rule." After having this beer the rule says: "If you want to drink lager, drink this lager. Inside or outside the sauna. Everywhere. There are no other lagers." Now, let's wait for the rule to change again. 

Ölbeat
There actually were no other options. The perfect matching song is an American song by a Finnish band:

Hanoi Rocks: Up Around the Bend (YouTube)

From the 1984 album, Two Steps from the Move, the song is a cover song, originally performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival and written by John Fogerty - as we all know. The original was one of the band's rhythm guitarist Nasty Suicide's favourite songs, and it was first jammed in band rehearsals. The record label needed an international hit for the album, so they chose this one to the album. Rest is history: Hanoi Rocks turned the original swamp rock tune into an unforgettable piece of 80's glam rock. Unfortunately, the band's success story was cut short after drummer Razzle died in a car accident in 1984. Nevertheless, the most known lineup with singer Michael Monroe, guitarists Andy McCoy and Nasty Suicide, bassist Sam Yaffa and drummer Razzle had enough time to draw their mark in the rock'n'roll history. Anyway this song by this band was the only possible choice by the side of American Lager.